NZXT Nemesis Elite Edition Mid Tower Chassis

Okay, this is the first time I am writing a review here, before I used to write in my 1up blog, unfortunately that was a looong time ago. Okay-here goes!!!!!!

NZXT NEMESIS ELITE is the second chassis from the nzxt’s stable in the year 2004. I still remember this case was put up in pc gamer as a prize for the best funniest in game picture contest. I thought I would never get this case, not even in a million years. But all thanks to KMD-I hope you do good and everyone knows you will become big after launching todphod-remember us!!! So I will take a sentence out of The Alchemist and say “when you want something, the entire universe conspires in helping you to achieve it”. Moving on, here are the specs for my nemesis!!What’s under the hood?

The Packaging: “With Great power comes great responsibility” The Thermocol which protects the case from the inside is the best and secure. Doesn’t Budge within the box. I wish I had my own pics of the packaging but out of excitement I forgot. If you want me to add more to it, this package will ensure that there is no scratch, dents, bruises and cracks (even on the Plexiglas and the magnificent paint job)

Intimidation is my middle name-exteriors Before I continue, this is a pre modded case-some will love it, some will not-like my mom….she wishes if the shield goes down and the optimus prime “look-a-like” face to go up-either way, this is my childhood sweetheart and just like my msi motherboard which died with a heavily damaged 3000+ proccy-“Praan Jaye par Shaan na jaye.”. Moving to the sides:

Some will say, I bought this for looks because I felt in love with it for n00bish reasons, some will say-Sorcerer likes bling and chromes, which is also true but not as much as performance to reflect through the side panel.

Please excuse my bad wiring-inside and outside!!!! If someone wants to clear the mess out for me, please do so-I will take you out for dinner if you’re a girl but if you’re a boy I will give you a pat on your back!!!! This case was able to hold all of the hardware very well, and will look even better when I docked in the ocz (I bought it for cooling but if you people are guessing I am going for black coloured body, blue lights and steel and chrome looks-BINGO!!!!) All I need to do is get corsair 620 hx psu and 22-24 inch dell or viewsonic for 9800 xfx sli config in the future I am going to do all that by December (besides I am not playing any powerful games, just games like stalker and fear-besides my eyes are on Crysis and saving money to pull in widescreen goliath).

Moving on-the most important thing in showing off nemesis right here-The front!!!!! (From the left) the reflecting black chromed style hard plastic with 8 medieval looking “nuts” (no they are not working, just for show). The side which you see is the power button, looking good with the shield. When I first time seen the case at directron.com, the shield reminded me of the difficulty shield on halo game!!! But this is longer. Even though you cant take off the shield-and don’t even try to-the shield is secured tight and isn’t shaking at All. In the midst of all this, the nemesis is engraved on the shield…..wait did I say engraved???? NO it’s not engraved. It glows red with evil intentions!!!!!! As seen in the right hand side of the picture, the nemesis still never ceases to look mean and good in the dark. There are seven eye colours but I prefer red, green and purple-depending on my mood. The eye’s colour can be changed with the help of a small secret button when you open the door. Only problem is every time you switch it on, the eye goes to the default colour-blue. But that is fine by me. On the side, you can see the 3 fans does illuminate the whole chassis amazingly, which also eliminates the use of a LED light tube inside the hood. Every part of it looks gorgeously sick (if there is any such word combination). I did the wiring in such a way that nemesis glows all the time when comp is switched on rather then going on and off when the hard drive is accessed.

Other then the looks, it has two small magnets to hold the shield door correctly

Before I continue, another and major noticeable problem is that this case will be loved by csi: Miami because this thing can really take good fingerprints. You see those small circular metallic dots-those are the magnet grip I was talking about, and they do a great job. If you carry the case without mounting (which I did for past two months because I was so confused, I didn’t know what system I wanted to dock in it.) you will feel most of the weight is in the front face, which proves that the aluminum does its job very well, and this is the elite version-with lcd display and aluminum , rather then the non elite version which is stainless steel and without the lcd, but bought it for aluminum because last chassis which was steel used to rust pretty fast and I used to use silicon gel packs (one found in water bottles) to help reduce moisture, which didn’t at all.

This is my first international branded CPU chassis-in aluminum, last 2 ones were super power and VIP…..so it’s a major facelift. From a first person’s point of view when I see this for the first time LIVE….

”OH MY GOD…THE SHIELD….THE EYE….OH MY GOSH IS THAT YOU…OPTIMUS????”

—-

The side panel looks awesome!!!!! In the night I just open my curtains and let the folks in the other building looking at my room DIE WITH JEALOUSY: P-he started it!!!! It looked good and plain baddass but I didn’t understand one thing, why on Earth can I see that hideous looking bar and the mounts for the hard drive and rom drive!!! Strange you might say but this case was released in 2004-05 so side paneling in those days was pretty rare and I don’t think so there was a need to have those server sized chassis like the stacker 830. The light was bright but it didn’t distract me nor twitched my eye while looking at it or when I was glued to F.E.A.R. every step of the way. The other reason I was glued to FEAR because a guy apparently was…err….hanging around??? Maybe Gordon Freeman is helping Barney up the vent??

Question remained in my mind that will the LED lights on the ram cooler gel with the LED lights emitting from 3x 120 mm fan? Ladies and gentlemen I could say-but let the picture do the talking!

As you can see, it does gel in perfectly with the lights emitting from the case fan!!!!! AWESOME!! Right On! Moving on-to the right starts the interiors of the case-that’s right time to skin the nemesis like a sheep-so that you don’t have to.

The interiors of Nemesis “into the belly of the beast” I hate the wiring part, when I get a modular psu, it will look good but for now 400w is enough till I get the future upgrades. Inside is the unbrushed aluminum but it looks polished if you ask me. A lot of ventilation for the hard drive and for the rom drives. If you see the right side picture there’s the first 120 mm fan which sucks in the air. After that it brushes through the hard drive. Between the circle rows is the space for the hard drive, at max one can ad 5 hard drives and the front 120 mm does indeed have the ability to cool all the 5 hard drives. I mounted in the primary IDE 40 GB Samsung (7 years old) and 500 GB sata. Now it is quite good that there is a good circulation for the hard drive, but in an attempt to hide the cable I wanted to invert the hard drive and insert, unfortunately it just hit the base and the screwless lock wouldn’t lock. That also sucks because below the hard drive, they have given an opening which can lead to the power connector and the sata to the motherboard and hide some wiring, further helping to hide the tangles but it’s pretty difficult to do it when the sata connectors are connected in front. Yeah they did give a cable tie, but that’s just one. The only thing that nzxt was generous to give was the brass standoff and lots of screws and screwless mounts in the toolbox which was mounted on the hard drive, but I removed it to improve the circulation of air to the hard drive in a better way. Now when you see on the card lock on the right, it’s a good addition to the screwless design “innovation” (remember-made at 2005….this is a classic baddass case with loads of stuff), I still recommend using the screws to hold the cards, especially if you’re using the USB and the firewire extensions. Moving up you see the 120mm fan. It does push out a lot of air outside and one can feel it too. The hexagon shaped outlets are rather large and good, at the same time one has to clean out the part between the fans and the outlet, but that’s common in all cases.

I will come to the cd/floppy racks later-the fan!!!!! First thing I have to say it’s a good thing there’s a plastic fan guard but there is a chance that it might snap if you unscrew to change the fan, not only that but there is no fan filter in order to keep the dust bunnies out. Granted behind the fan there is the metal holes to take care of the issue in certain way, but a fan filter is a better shield would have been a great idea and a good access for people to clean it up. The most important fans are the front and the back, and the front needs good protection from dust since its pushing air in. Even though there is a criticism, there are extremely few chassis even today, which has a very good access of pushing fresh air in and out and the nemesis gets a thumbs out for it and blended it very well to the chassis’ face.

The finishing of the nemesis case is amazing even on the unpainted area. The cd racks has a side opening to push in the cr/dvd rom using the screwless draw rails. After seeing the side panel where the rom docks, there is also some access to put screws and secure the rom drive, if you question the strength of the rail-which I doubt because all of them goes in perfectly. The side of the rom drive has the round holes as big as the hard disk bay, for more air ventilation. The NZXT designers have really made this case for gamers and for hardware enthusiasts too, trying to make sure that the nzxt was one of those mid-tower cases which make a strong stand against super sized chassis cooling in the mid tower section. Other then that, another thing which I didn’t like was that even though they have given lot of breathing space in the aluminum for the power and reset wires, in the plastic face however, it comes through a small tight hole next to the lower hinge which might snap the copper wiring inside, so I had to protect it using a steel grip-better to be cautious then sorry. I read it on new egg where “technically high” buyers needed to check the wiring, and I didn’t want to do that because I am bad at restoring stuff back to how it used to work.

Let’s go deep. One thing I have to say which is unique about this case.

The top panel-“looking good”

Unfortunately I have to be brief about the LCD panel, reason being I didn’t connect the temperature sensors and the fan controllers. There are 3 fan controllers along with 3 temperature sensors!!! One for system, another is CPU and last is for hard drive. Other then that, you can adjust the time, time, set alarm and Celsius/ fareinheiht toggle-all can be done within the three buttons on the LCD display. The power source is a Molex connector-the male/female connectors, which is convenient if the Molex connector is extremely limited. However if you want to hide the LCD screen, you can Just slip it down

Other then that-in front there are 2 USB ports, mic in and speakers (conviniently placed) and a firewire which can be hidden when not in use. You hear a plastic “phat” sound but that’s not a con

Honestly I believe this is the best add-on from the steel version which doesn’t have a display. But I question the LCD cables. They are good, but they could have used silver mesh wires. It would have looked awesome if the component wires were silver meshed-even the fans’ wires.

This thought had hit me when I connected the xtc cooler which is with silver mesh 3 pin female connector. Another con is that they gave only one cable tie. It would be decent if they give 9 more, didn’t make sense at all….even if this case is made in 2004.

This is the side fan on the side panel, just like the front fan, takes the air in.

After setup, this is how it looks. This is some Chinese styles twin blades and nzxt engraved in the middle. It looks chromed and gels well with the inner aluminum and 4 plexiglass chromed corners-it’s plastic. Quiet strong one and a great quality, considering the fact its hollow from inside

The side panel fan is located well so the fresh air can hit the stock fan, the xtc and the top part of the card. To see the real effect on the card because of this fan, I disconnected the side panel, ran FEAR on max settings for 15 minutes. The card was blazing in 58 degrees Celsius…that’s awfully a lot. But after connecting and running the side panel with 15 minutes game play, the card hit an amazing 48 degrees Celsius. I am impressed. For stock fans, these are pretty good fans. All the 3 120mm fans are running at 1061 rpm and it’s almost silent (the fan of amd cooler is making the hiss sound, the only sound issue. If you think I might put the side panel’s aluminum fan filter as a con? No-infact it really does keep the side components dust free…almost.

The fan at the back-the only fan which is pushing the air outside-other then the LC psu fan, and one can really feel the force of the air pushing out if you put your hand behind. On total load, CPU temperature is 47 degrees Celsius on load and mobo is 48 degrees and 51 on CPU. On idle, it is 45 on the mobo and 46 on the CPU. With the xtc cooler is mobo’s temp is 43 degrees and CPU temp is 44 degrees. The fans work their magic indeed.

However if in the future, you get the scenario that certain 90mm fans are better, then nzxt did provide the holes for 90 and 92 mm fans at the back. Strange problem-it’s not the case for the front and side, for the holes is already made and the side nzxt panel is fixed pretty hard.

My Verdict There you go-my conclusions about my case-my review. Verdict in the last is it’s an awesome case, even for today’s age where heat is an issue. This case made me to explore to a great detail as an amateur reviewer. In my opinion, this is better looking (and maybe in performance) then the antic 900 and the viper case. Best part that this is black. You do get in other colours and without LCD in non-elite version, but its steel, which could rust, unlike aluminum version. Following are the pros and cons:

Pros:

1. This will pose intimidation to other ordinary and fancy looking cases easily.

2. Wonderful paintjob

3. Can hide the front LCD and USB front ports.

4. Magnetic doors.

5. Good finish on the inside

6. Great thought for the airflow-from the holes to the fans.

7. Will last a real long time

8. Gets the job done-a wonderful feature packed, easy to install case

9. Beautiful paintjob. The paintjob which attract you.

10. Transparent side panel is great without a doubt.

11. Rubber based case stands enforced with copper rings (thank you)

12. Decent sized cables, temperature sensors and fan controllers.

13. Lots of spare screws brass standoffs. The screws blend in well with aluminum.

14. Beautiful finish in the insides too

15. Great and sturdy screwless draws for hard drive, floppy and DVD rom

16. Except mounting the motherboard, it is screwless.

17. All the lights blend in well with the blue lights coming out from the fans and LCD display-even if one changes the light of “The Eye”

18. One of the best mid tower I can see for a long time.

Cons:

1.Pre modded case-beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

2.Just one cable tie?

3.Could have given a fan filter in the front for easy cleaning and shielding.

4.Should have given removable side nzxt panel and given one chromed looking panel to place it on the back panel fan.

5.No silver mesh cables.

6.Ridiculous instructions to use temperature sensors-not for noobs.

7.Should have given lots of access to route the wires to the right side panel to hide the wires-has potential and free space on the racks and on the right hand side of the panel, but didn’t put to use.

8.Still didn’t understand why there is a bar below the psu, it doesn’t even help to hide the cable.

9.CSI: Miami will love to take your finger prints from this case.

10. Be careful not to scratch it.

11.I wish the case remembered the last EYE led light it used.

I wish….

1. They give screwless screws for the motherboard, making it complete screwless.

2. More cable ties

3. A brush to clean the fans or something like that.

4. A plastic sheet should have been stuck to the shield and side panel.

5. Coloured LED display will be off the hook!!!!!

6. Just like how the eye’s colours change, so should the fan.

This is all I got to say, you be the judge about the looks-but for performance, built, paintjob and fans-will get a 4 ½ and a great thumbs up for craftsmanship. The reason I cut only half is because other factors in this case cover up the so-called flaws.

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